Malaysian banks' loan growth slows to 4.6% in October

But household loan growth sustained its upward momentum.

The Malaysian banking industry's loan growth slipped further to 4.6% YoY in Oct 2017 (from 5.2% YoY in Sep 2017) as non-household (non-HH) loan growth eased further to 4.1% YoY from 5.4% YoY in September. However, household (HH) loan growth maintained its pace at 5.1% YoY (5.0% YoY in Sep 2017).

According to Maybank Kim Eng, on an annualized basis, the upward trend in HH loan growth was more pronounced, picking up from an annualized pace of just 3.0% in Feb 2017 to 4.5% in Oct 2017. Annualized loan growth for non-HH loans was just 1.5% in Oct 2017.

Here's more from Maybank Kim Eng:

HH loan growth has held steady at about 5.0-5.1% YoY over the past seven consecutive months. There was a slight uptick in residential property loan growth during the quarter (3Q17) and this more than compensated for the slowdown in almost all other key consumer segments such as share margin financing, auto HP, non-residential property financing, personal loans and credit cards.

On the non-HH front, working capital loan growth slowed to just 4.3% YoY in October from 4.9% YoY in September and 7.2% YoY in August. On a segmental basis, lending to manufacturing, wholesale/retail, construction, real estate, transport/storage and finance/business came in softer YoY. Repayments are generally outpacing disbursements and this has contributed to generally sluggish growth in business loans.